In an ideal world, homework serves the purpose of reinforcing some of the lessons taught in school while also allowing the family to participate in a child’s educational growth. In an ideal world it allows a young person to begin to learn some of the tools and work habits needed to continue learning and structuring one’s life going well beyond one’s days in school. Regardless of what kind of homework and how much homework you believe children should have at any given time, most educators agree that some form of take home educational work—reading time, writing time, problem solving time—is worthwhile.
In recent years, more and more schoolwork is accessed and assigned online. There are pluses to the expediency, the ability for students and their families to have more direct and quick contact with teachers and instructors concerning assignments, all while also offering up tools online to help those students who may have missed a lesson, or just need more guidance in learning something. Paper is not wasted; gone are the xerox printouts of assigned chapters from books. Schools are able to cut some of their costs and waste, theoretically, by being able to create digital homework and information. Ideally, this is how technology helps us, by making things easier for both the teacher and the student.
Anyone who has experience with our public school system knows that over the last two decades a big part of the PTA’s mandate in schools is fundraising. It is depressing. Money is needed for paper towels, for pencils, for crayons, for paper, for all of the things that should be considered the bare minimum mechanical requirements of a school. As a result, any time a private tech company like Apple, or some large telecom, or entrepreneur pushing a new educational online platform offers to privately donate or pay for some piece of technology for a school system, those schools jump at the chance. An example of this is Polk County, Tennessee. The rural area has been trying to integrate iPad tablets into their educational system since 2013. A part of this included using a technology leasing program, training and spending $1.4 million building the correct infrastructure to use the devices.
The school system’s push toward digital “innovation” got rewarded two years ago, when Verizon named Polk County schools part of what they call an Innovative Learning school. This distinction gave sixth through eighth graders in Polk County 5GB of data per month (at school) and 500 iPads. This is helpful for a school infrastructure that includes Wi-Fi on school grounds, and in some cases Wi-Fi access on school buses. Local churches have reportedly coordinated to try and offer free Wi-Fi to students outside of school.
The real issue is that there is still a very real digital divide for some Polk county students who cannot afford, or cannot get access to internet at home. The term for this issue is the “Homework Divide,” or more generally, the “Digital Divide.” It’s basically the term for a symptom of our country’s income and social inequality in regards to our changing telecommunications and information networks. It’s the fundamental reason why the majority of Americans support net neutrality regulations and the reason why most people believe the internet should be considered a public utility.
Polk County school are getting a lot of help, but according to Times Free Press 25% of Tennessee students do not have home internet access, either because they cannot afford it or because there is no service offered when they live. According to census data, 17% of students In the United States do not own a computer and 18% of those students do not have broadband internet access at home. The numbers are far worse in the rural areas of Tennessee. Like most places, the more populated an area is, the more workarounds there are—public facilities that can offer Wi-Fi access to people without. In more rural areas, frequently the best that can be offered is fleeting mobile access in some places at some times.
The first step for many areas underserved by telecoms, or affordable internet access, is to offer up subsidized mobile-only programs like the Lifeline program. This is something that President Obama was trying to move into the 21st century by extending it to broadband subsidized for low-income families. The Lifeline program is something that has been frozen, with Verizon shill FCC chair Ajit Pai also attempting to completely throw 70% of the families receiving subsidized broadband access offline. That decision was overturned by an appeals court, stifling Pai’s attempts at widening the haves and have nots.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, when not signing bans on plastic bag bans, is giving a lot of lip service to the need for rural broadband expansion. However, his recently signed and controversial school voucher bill shows that he has very little interest in providing public schools and their students with anything that doesn’t go directly into the pockets of big business. Historically that means those students who do not have will continue not to receive, and those on the edge will soon find themselves without.
